Destabilising interactions in the climate system: How tipping elements interact

Beyond 2°C of global warming, the risk of one climate tipping element triggering other tipping elements in the Earth's climate system strongly increases. Furthermore, most of these interactions are destabilising. This is the result of a new study by an international team of scientists, led by Anna von der Heydt from Utrecht University and Nico Wunderling from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The study was published on 26 January in the scientific journal Earth System Dynamics, and sets out the scientific background to chapter 1.5 of the recently published Global Tipping Points Report. Tipping elements are parts of the climate system that, when changes exceed a threshold, can undergo abrupt and irreversible transformations. The threshold is called the tipping point. And while recent research has deepened the knowledge on individual tipping elements, like polar ice sheets, tropical rainforests or permafrost regions, the interactions between them are less well understood.